COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- You may have talked to your teenagers about just saying no to alcohol and marijuana, but have you ever asked them about prescription drugs?
A recent government report found that prescription medications are some of the most popular drugs among teens these days.
In fact, a study found nearly 10 percent of high school seniors have used the prescription pain killer, Vicodin.
Local police detectives tell FOX 21 News that prescription drug abuse among teens is certainly on the rise in Colorado Springs, and as one recovering addict says, these drugs are just as dangerous as cocaine, heroin and meth.
"Before I ever got involved in prescription drugs, I was going to college at the time, studying for a degree in mathematics, doing well, getting straight A's," says the man.
This bright, articulate 24-year-old, who doesn't want to be identified, is not the type of person you might imagine would become a drug addict.
"The first time, I was a sophomore in college. A friend gave me two Vicodin and told me it would help me sleep, and I took it and thought it was the best feeling in the entire world."
But that "best feeling" quickly turned into the worst. The drugs were so physically addicting, that if he didn't take them, he was so miserably sick he couldn't get out of bed.
Soon the only thing he cared about was getting his hands on more drugs just to get through the day.
"I let down a lot of people in my family, I stole from my family, I did a lot of shameful things, I lost a lot of friends," he says.
So how did he, like so many other young people, get access to prescription drugs without having a valid prescription?
"It started out friends that knew people who had a prescriptions that would sell it, then buying it on the street from random people -- I didn't know, to a point where it escalated to filling fraudulent prescriptions. I went to jail for that," he explains.
Detectives with the Colorado Springs Police Department say they are seeing more cases of prescription fraud and drug abuse than ever before.
"It's not difficult at all, unfortunately, to buy prescription medications on the street for adults or teens," one undercover detective explains.
She says part of the struggle against these kinds of drugs is the misperception that teenagers seem to have about them, thinking they're somehow safer than other drugs.
"I always justified it's not that bad, because doctors are prescribing it, so it's OK because even though I don't have a prescription, doctors say it's okay to use, but it's just as bad as heroin," the recovering addict says.
Police say that's why parents need to talk with their children, to give them the facts about prescription drugs and make sure they know how dangerous they are.
"It's really important they have those talks more than once with their child, not just in elementary school, but every few months -- what's going on at school and what they've heard," says the detective.
She recommends parents who have prescription drugs at home keep count of how many pills they have and keep them locked up.
And some advice to teenagers, from someone who's been there: "Don't ever try it even once," says the young man, who is now in a drug rehabilitation program.
Selling prescription medications and prescription fraud are both felonies that can result in jail time.
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